“They’re all sleeping,” she whispered.
“I think they’ll recover—”
“If those monstrous machines give ‘em time!” old Habibula panted.
“Ken says it’s time for us to strike.
For life’s sweet sake, don’t waste time!”
Gravely unhurried, she waited for me to lead the way into the elevator.
As we dropped, I turned to look at her.
Her lean proud loveliness pounded in my veins and ached in my throat—yet now she was a goddess, moving to the seat of cosmic judgment, serenely untouchable.
“Please—please forgive me,” I stammered.
“For sending you away with Scabbard.
I—I didn’t know.”
Her bronze eyes fell to me, aloofly amused.
“You were not to know.”
“Couldn’t you—couldn’t you have trusted me?”
“I asked your name.”
The dance of light died in her eyes.
“I learned you are Lars Ulnar.
I remembered that twice keepers of the peace have been kidnapped by Ulnar traitors.
I didn’t want to be the third.”
I said nothing, but she must have seen me flinch.
“Sorry, Lars.”
A softer smile warmed her gaunt face.
“We trust you now.”
We left the elevator at the cable stage.
I clipped her D-grip to the moving cable and we soared toward the dome through the shadowy heart of the hollowed asteroid.
“Scabbard’s mate and those two spacemen?”
I twisted around to look at Lilith.
She floated behind me, staring toward the dome as if she could already see our unknown antagonists waiting out in Nowhere.
“Was it your secret weapon that—disposed of them?”
She nodded silently.
“And mortal well it did!” puffed old Habibula, flying behind her.
“Lil’s got a precious obligation to protect herself.
Even now, when both her sisters share it, the duty of the keeper of the peace is a fearful thing for any being!”
In the dull red dusk of the zero-G dome, I found fan-jets for Lilith and old Habibula.
She had stopped at the entrance, gazing at that black funnel in the heart of the anomaly, her face gaunt and grave and white.
Ken Star came soaring toward us from the red-glinting mass of the electronic telescope.
“Are you quite certain, Ken?” Her solemn question greeted him.
“It’s an awful decision—the future of worlds at stake.
Do you know that they are able and acting to destroy us?
Are you sure that no truce is possible?
Are you quite certain that they or we must die?”
“You can assure the Green Hall Council that we have made every effort,” he answered huskily.
“Our signals have got no reply—except unprovoked attacks from weapons we can’t counter with anything short of AKKA.”
“But radio and laserphones don’t work reliably in the anomaly,” she said.
“How can you be sure that they knew we were trying to signal?”
“We can’t.” He caught a rasping breath.
“But I believe we have shown forbearance enough.
After all, we want to survive—”
An alarm bell interrupted him, chiming from the computer.
“Mortal me!” old Habibula puffed.